Rohan108
New Head-Fier
• The man behind the invention of the first modern headphones was the American engineer Nathaniel Baldwin from Utah. It was said he made the first pair - a headset that could amplify sound - by hand in his kitchen in 1910. When his idea was dismissed by private investors he turned to the military. It turns out that the navy was interested in the invention and ordered 100 pairs. Baldwin became wealthy from his contract with the navy, but he never patented his invention.
• In 1937 it was Eugene Beyer that created the Beyerdynamic DT-48 model of the first dynamic driver headphones for monitoring and home listening in Berlin in Germany. DT is an acronym for "Dynamic Telephone". In 1949 the company AKG from Vienna in Austria focused on headphone design when creating they model K120.
• And lastly it was John C. Koss, who is credited with creating the first stereo headphones Koss SP-3 in Milwaukee in Wisconsin 1958. He was a big Jazz lover and his goal was to produce headphones exclusively for listening to music.
• Not much is know about Gustave F. Falkenberg who submitted the patent for the headphone assembly in 1963, and was approved in 1966. The patent was assigned to a company in Brookfield, Wisconsin called Dimensional Products Inc. He did not patent the driver technology though. He also patented a design for an illuminated display, and a dispenser for bottled liquids amongst others.
The claim from the patent office describes the “Headphone Assembly” device as such:
“1. IN A HEADPHONE FOR A HEADSET, THE COMBINATION OF: AN OUTER SHELL FORMING A HOUSING THAT HAS A PERIPHERAL RIM DEFINING AN OPEN END, SAID RIM HAVING APERTURES AT TWO OPPOSITELY DISPOSED POINTS; AN EARCUP EXTENDING OVER THE OPEN END OF SAID OUTER SHELL AND INCLUDING A PERIPHERAL WALL NESTING WITHIN THE PERIPHERAL RIM OF SAID OUTER SHELL AND HAVING APERTURES AT TWO POINTS EACH IN ALIGNMENT WITH AN APERTURE IN THE OUTER SHELL, A DEPRESSED PANEL PORTION INWARD OF AND ADJACENT TO SAID PERIPHERAL WALL, AN INNER RIDGE DEFINING THE INNER EXTENT OF SAID PANEL PORTION AND FORMING A CHANNEL WITH SAID PANEL PORTION AND SAID PERIPHERAL WALL, AND AN EAR RECEIVING CAVITY TO THE INSIDE OF SAID INNER RIDGE; A SPEAKER WITHIN SAID HEADPHONE AND MOUNTED UPON THE REAR OF SAID EARCUP PANEL PORTION;”
You can download the full patent here.
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